


unity

by qinzai



Category: The Rook (TV 2019), The Rook - Daniel O'Malley, The Rook - Starz
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2020-07-29 13:49:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qinzai/pseuds/qinzai
Summary: Gestalt doesn't miss anything. They don't know how.(Yeah, they do).Potentially a drabble collection exploring Gestalt from Starz' The Rook show, because I haven't read the books and they say fanfic authors are just fanfic readers who can't find what they want to read. And it's a challenge to write them, that's for sure.





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes Gestalt asked themself questions, just to see how it sounded out loud. They never had problems with hearing their own voice, not like Myfanwy once complained about while watching a video of them all at Glengrove, since they had ears not connected to the head that could speak. It wasn’t weird. 

Mostly it was practice questions, anticipating a day someone would really, truly get them and want to know more. Or practicing professionalism, how to deal with those who wanted to treat them like a scientific mystery.

“If you’re a hive mind, do you wish there was one of you that controlled the others?” they ventured in Robert’s voice over breakfast that morning. It sounded so silly they couldn’t keep a smirk off of Teddy’s face. Yesterday’s question had been “Do you all feel it when you stub your toe?” which had had Gestalt laughing with all four heads. 

That was the thing. They hoped for the questions, but even then the questions didn’t understand. Wanting to know more out of a heartfelt desire to get to know Gestalt and wanting to know more because they were an aberration were two entirely different things that they couldn’t even barely picture the first. There is no all. There is only Gestalt.

Their illusion had worked too well. 

Nobody, not even Gestalt’s closest coworkers, understood the concept of them. Myfanwy hid it well but they sometimes still caught her puzzling them over. Ingrid tried, bless her, out of a desire to streamline her paperwork, and never texted more than one of their numbers at a time instead of putting them all in one group chat, like Conrad had done in the beginning. 

They were trained to be a puzzle, broken apart until the whole was unseeable, only allowed to reassemble in the privacy of their own home. Sitting on the couch, all eyes focused on watching the telly only from slightly different angles, all ankles crossed and all hands dipping into a bag of crisps, allowed to not multitask, not analyze or compartmentalize, not have to constantly be assessing stimulation - that was a rare peace. One they hardly had time for nowadays. 

The news filtered in from their tablet and they sneered, standing up and clearing the table with four hands and scrolling past that particular article on American politics with another. They slipped their phones into their pockets and tidied up, taking a deep breath with all of their lungs before they could walk out the door and would have to break apart once again. They checked their purse one last time, used their eyes to analyze their hair, and then walked out the door, setting their shoulders, lowering their shoulders, lifting their chin and pulling out their phone.

A message from the Bishop, already. Another posting about a sighting of them walking in step, a reminder. 

They passed the porter on their way out and couldn’t help a single smirk as they remembered his comment when they first moved in - an awe that all of these siblings got along so well they shared a flat. 

There is only Gestalt. And Gestalt would only have themself.


	2. same dark places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody's actually puking in this one, but if you don't like the mention of the possibility, better sit this out. Yes, it's a sick!fic. No, it's not well done. 
> 
> It's set hazily. Before show, let's say. Could be after show. I started this before Ep6 aired and I hear a rumor on the wind there's some kind of fancy party in Ep7.

“I’m not unhappy,” they grumbled through froths of toothpaste, meeting every one of their eyes in the mirror, leaning over their two sinks. 

Truth be told, Gestalt didn’t mind holidays. Most of them were based around family, but who was Gestalt to begrudge other people their joy? More than the usual, private thoughts, at least. 

“Just poor timing,” they muttered out of one mouth as they spit, one at a time, although only one throat was clear from the bitter aftertaste of throwing up. 

“It had to happen sometime,” sounded a different voice, and “you knew it was coming, idiot,” they admonished themself from another, the one that sounded like gravel. 

Could have prepared better, that’s for sure, they thought. Now it left them standing there, mostly woozy, only six hands to gingerly do the work of eight - arranging the apartment to deal with four miserable bodies, for the foreseeable future. Buckets lined with plastic bags and placed around the bed. Blankets pulled out of the closets and strategically laid across surfaces, shallow bowls of water with damp cloths on side tables. Gestalt knew the yearly routine well. 

The body other people called Robert wasn’t the weakest link - Gestalt had no weakest link, wouldn’t allow themself to be weak - but it did get sick about once a year that knocked Gestalt out of commission. That body got coldest, too, easier than the rest of them, although they would never let the Checquy know. They just let their employer, their parent organization, assume all four of them get sick at the same time instead of having them know that one of their bodies essentially betrayed their veneer of competence. All four bodies got sick eventually after one of them did, anyway. 

Illness was like getting drunk, for Gestalt. If one body drank, Gestalt would feel tipsy in the rest, although their blood didn’t physically change and some focus and recompartmentalization would certainly help. Being sick was the same. Not all four needed to have the flu virus to get a cotton-mouth, a foggy head, to walk around like they were surrounded by a fog. It wasn’t as if Gestalt could just sever themself from a body, any more than a one-body person could do so from a bruised limb. It didn’t truly affect the others, but they still felt it, so that was affecting enough.

They had just laid down, wet rag only on one forehead for now, when one of their phones rang. One long white limb, whichever was closest to that tinny sound, picked it up and brought it to the closest ear. 

“Yes?” They said, concentrating on not letting a groan sound out. Ah. It had been ‘Teddy’’s arm to ‘Eliza’’s face. 

“I heard you called in sick,” came a quiet voice.

Myfanwy. Fuck. They should have checked caller ID. Sloppy. 

“Yeah,” they said softly. “Rotten luck. But everyone gets the flu sometimes. Farrier approved the leave.” They winced. Bad tonal balance, but they really had misstepped in letting her know it was the flu. 

Then again, maybe she wouldn’t worry too much. Personally. Professionally, they knew their absence would affect work, give everyone a little bit more to do before the Easter field mission coming up. 

“I’ll be better by the event, I should think,” they continued. Myfanwy was silent on the other side for a moment. They could just picture her, the determined face she was probably making, those beautiful eyes thinking, wheels turning behind them. They couldn’t help but smiling to themself, there in the privacy of their dark room. 

“I hope you will be.”

A beat. 

“Can I… bring anything over?” She said, all in a rush, in one breath. As if they hadn’t been friends for years. As if she didn’t know Gestalt would let her do anything she wanted, really. 

That was one reason they sometimes hated the Checquy. Gestalt had known her since they were both sixteen, but professionalism had been pounded into their head when they started working, tearing apart those bonds like a paper ripped in half. Still legible, but fundamentally changed. 

“No, no,” they reassured her. ‘Eliza’’s voice was good for that. “Don’t want you catching anything. It needs to be contained, you know? It’s not so bad.” They were going for comforting again, but the words were interrupted by the need to retch from another set of lungs that filled up the background sound. 

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Myfanwy replied. “Doesn’t sound ‘so bad’ to me.” Gestalt gave her the light chuckle she was aiming to elicit. “Alright, well. I’ll let you go. You need to recover in time for the event, I’m not so sure we can find enough backup by then.”

“I will,” they promised, although they could promise no such thing. 

“And Gestalt? Really, just tell me if you need anything. I know you can take care of yourself, but you - you don’t need to,” Myfanwy said. There was the faint sound of birds in the background and Gestalt could only guess she was outside. Must be daytime. She hung up before they could respond. 

The phone was put back on the side table - carefully not in the bowl of water, just in case Myfwany was to call again - and they threw arms over their eyes. 

They really didn’t want to miss this event. Half infiltration and half holiday party for government agents from the other departments, Eliza’s hair was already dyed a summer blonde and Alex’s a tawny brown, giving their hair time to grow into the look, make it natural. They had their outfits already, spring suits for all four of their bodies. Three days. They could ride out a flu in four days.

But mostly, they didn’t want to miss the event because of Myfanwy. Last year’s New Year’s party, innocently held by the Checquy just for the Checquy and people they needed to butter up for money, she had looked so beautiful they ducked into a hallway to collect themself for a moment. That golden dress that draped around her, clean lines and an almost-open back, made her seem even smaller than she was, especially with her hair up. 

For all people thought they could be superhuman, they were still human. They had wanted so badly to see Myfanwy, see what she would wear, see her put on that fake smile she used only at things like that. Wanted to see her put on her fake charm and wanted all the excuses to watch her in the name of security. 

“I’m not unhappy,” they mumbled. “Just want to do my job.”

Thinking of Myfanwy and their anger at the virus attacking them, they fell asleep, as they did every night, to their own breathing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth be told, I haven't written anything in many years. So I tried to do it a little longer this time, just as practice. Let me know what you think?
> 
> Truth be told x2, I was going to make things better for Gestalt but then I was like - well, they're asleep. Don't need to wake them. 
> 
> Truth be told x3, you guys made me really happy so I brought this to you. It didn't light me on fire as much as the first one but like I said, it's all testing. Plus Jon Fletcher recently answered a question of mine on Twitter and now that I've finished with this bit I think I will have a lot more to write... you'll see (maybe). 
> 
> Truth be told x4, the dress is based entirely on Emma Greenwell's dress from the premiere of the show, except gold, because New Year's.


	3. isn't that all we should be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this isn't, like, um, anything at all
> 
> just me practicing and thinking until i get a good enough idea to make another real chapter, at which point i'll probably delete this. Maybe. 
> 
> but I figured, I wrote it, I might as well share it? for now.
> 
> this is a case of the uunnnreliabllee narratorrrr

The thing was, Gestalt was entirely aware all things were balanced in the world. It didn’t mean they couldn’t fight against it, railing each and every day against the sucking void of other people and the mawless expanse of the sky, but that battle took place in the back of their mind, in the space they took up on the tube, not with any conscious effort, not any more. 

Gestalt was the only person who had more than one body, and that sort of existence came at a cost from the very beginning. Now they were molded into four stern shadows, who had everything cut away from them in the name of safety, including their very name. What that had been had been erased into Gestalt until even Gestalt didn’t remember what it was like to not have a name that described them. It was far too late to gain a name they described instead. 

When they could look themself in the eye and see four different reassuring smiles, they didn’t have many friends. There were marks they could seduce with their bodies and herds of low-knuckled men they could blend in with, have drinks with, laugh and gamble and cheat. Women they could dance with. Other people who went by ‘they’ who wouldn’t raise their eyebrows for too long. Harmless little book clubs that didn’t mind if their dear ‘Teddy’ had callouses ill befitting a software engineer. International agents that ignored their deflecting shield and matched them story for story but still thought of them all as siblings - or worse, called them ‘it’ when they thought Gestalt couldn’t hear. 

No, those weren’t friends. In their darkest moments they sometimes wrote Myfanwy off as a friend too, too bright and burning to be gently thought of. 

But that was the balance, that was the price to pay. They didn’t listen to much music because it was all about love. They didn’t have to ask anyone over to help move their furniture, or get anyone to drive them back from the infirmary when they got injured. They were the Checquy’s best agent, all eyes, all moving, able to handle more than the King herself. They hadn’t needed to go to uni, or worry about job security, or juggle four different schedules. Most days nobody even asked stupid questions, either, except if they were out buying coffee with the general public. 

So what if all that good came at the price of fracturing by minutes. Different accents, different foods, different attitudes and expressions, Gestalt danced like a mirror on a string to make things normal and fine for other people. Better to be the hunter than the hunted, better to be assimilating and performing than constantly the freak. 

Besides, it wasn’t like they needed friends. Even if it had been instilled in them rather than developed naturally, they liked to do. To find, to fight, to analyze, and to reinforce their belief that all things in the world were balanced, in some way or another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to too much Keaton Henson and then i was like: oh, wait. this could be... this could be related to Gestalt. ope.
> 
> This is also to say I, ah, made this: https://playmoss.com/en/mulishwhim/playlist/strange-and-unfamiliar 
> 
> I'm finding I can't write anything set in-canon just yet, I need to see the whole series to get Gestalt more, there's still pieces I'm missing, mentally (and biographically).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> did someone say mission? 
> 
> i didn't, i said 'well gee okay maybe i'll try my hand at it and fake my way through it', not that it would be done or done well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> swears appear in this fic, in case you're sensitive to that. also a little bit of body horror (just someone thinking they're a little bit burning) if you don't like that.

Rings were, on occasion, necessary. 

Not everyone - well, no one truly was, but - not everyone was trained like Gestalt to see things. Patterns. Tells. To watch and to analyze. 

Even without training, however, even the most average civilian could pick up what the presence of a wedding ring meant. What they did with that information varied, but at least they knew. Gestalt wasn’t blind - they were very much aware they were attractive with every body. They looked at themself more times in a day than someone who loitered in Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors. 

But rings could also be very, very inconvenient.

They took a moment before looking over at Linda, pursing their lips. 

“I don’t love the situation I’m in right now,” they said, enunciating every word delicately, doing their best not to give the enormity of the situation away to the three Pawns they were sharing an elevator with. Linda, lion-eyed Linda, picked up on it right away. 

“Elevators?” She said dryly. “Yes, I remember how much you hate being confined.” The two of them shared an easy smile and a laugh meant to smooth feathers. “Vividly.”

The Pawns shared skittering looks. Thankfully, the doors to the floor Gestalt was going to opened and they and Linda stepped out, making their way to her office with relaxed shoulders. As soon as they were in her office, before the lights even had a chance to turn on, her hands were on her hips. 

“Alright, out with it.”

“The mission’s turned to shit,” they reported. “Three Knights out of commission, and Robert’s been kidnapped. Abducted. Not sure yet, but taken to a secondary location.” 

“So you’ve lost contact with the rest on the ground. Where’s Alex?” 

“Unconscious due to trauma to the head,” they replied. “But last known location was being removed from the scene by Fischer and Yun.”

“The monitoring station was discovered?” The incredulity in her voice was their fair due. Gestalt lowered their eyes. 

“No. I was going in as backup. There was-” They were cut off by one single sharp hand of Linda’s, raised dismissively. 

“At this point, I don’t need to know. It’s done. We’ll discuss it later.” She turned on her screens, configuring them to the cameras they had access to, the mission reports and the live data logs streaming in from nearby the tunnels underneath Pall Mall where the mission was taking place.   
“What do you want to do about Robert?” A secondary location was not good, in either of their eyes. Secondary locations meant restraint, probable selling, or torture. The creativity these days was endless. Linda leaned against her desk, steel unbent but patience tested. 

“That’s where it’s getting tricky. They haven’t identified us as Checquy, yet. I have a handle on the situation outside of that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Get to the point.”

“The cover used today was the staycationers. So they’re right now looking up the social media fabrications to get to my spouse.”

“For ransom or for follow-up kidnapping?”

“Unknown,” they replied, shaking their head. “Ops didn’t have any pictures thrown up since we didn’t think it would be necessary, but now we have limited options.”

“Right,” she said, tapping at her keyboard for a moment. “Can’t use Teddy because they’ve seen Alex, Eliza and Robert look too much like siblings.” 

They resisted curling their lip, reminded of past missions which hadn’t gone to plan because of that. Even with their hair dyed, the relation couldn’t be more obvious. And it didn’t help that Gestalt worked fully in sync with, well, themself. To an outside observer, they could never play spouse to themself. 

“Myfanwy won’t do it, of course,” Linda continued, ignoring what was or was not written on their face. “And you’ve got most of the Knights we could spare on the op already.” 

“Yes,” they confirmed. “Which is why I’m currently getting punched in the torso, as I don’t have any details of my spouse to give them. I don’t like this.” Depending on the damage, they may only get part of their time off to recover. 

She folded her hands underneath her chin and looked up at them. “Yet you’re gambling on Alex -” she waved her hand loosely, for lack of a better phrase, “-coming back online to gather Yun and Fischer and rush back in there, guns blazing.”

They said nothing. As ever, Farrier was King for a reason, and she could see behind all that they did - in work situations. 

“With head damage.”  
“It’s just physical,” Gestalt said, at long last. “And if we could borrow Conrad from his duties, it would get done much faster. Fischer confirms they’re safe but nearby, and I’m directing her to the secondary location. It’s not far. And not public.”

Besides getting beaten repeatedly by multiple attackers, there was no rush. Gestalt hated the feeling when one of their bodies was knocked out - they felt like their feet were stuck in syrup, instantly processing that much slower. But they were safe, and it wouldn’t be so bad in the end, they figured. 

Linda turned over the proposal in her head in her usual manner, before nodding. 

“If you can convince Conrad, then you have my approval for the plan. But if not, you’ll have to grab someone else as a fake spouse and do it that way. And leave one of you here at Apex House. If they’re smart enough to think of secondary locations, I don’t want to give them the chance at having all of you.”

\---

One hour later, the mission looked like this:

Gestalt was bleeding from multiple foreheads. (Well, two.) They wiped it away, unmindful of their synchronicity. 

Yun was clutching her ribs on the floor five feet away to their nine and six and three o’clock, surrounding her. She was the only one on the ground as of then - Conrad was leaning on the wall, but that counted as upright, and Fischer had her gun pressed against the forehead of a target.

“You kidnapping, lowlife, stupid sack of shit,” she was growling. A sizzling of flesh began to sound where the metal was touching his skin, doubtlessly getting very hot. He began to whimper, splayed flat on the ground with his palms upward and open. Soon enough, he would burn. After that, it was a matter of how much Fischer could be placated to decide if he was left with a permanent scar, or spontaneously combust. Gestalt didn’t make a move to stop her. “Where’s the cargo?”

“I- I swear, I don’t know, I’m new here, it’s my first job with them, I promise-” he pleaded, begging, voice trembling like a child caught in trouble and refusing to fess up to their facade.

“Don’t you dare lie to me, you son of a bitch,” she cut him off. The callouses on his hands, the way his shoulders hadn’t gone up in fear but in readiness, his coordinated movements from when the rest of his team was alive - it was a good act, but an act nonetheless.   
The man’s face began to redden and shift, his skin no doubt beginning to feel hot, his imagination telling him it was erupting into boils, and flaking off. He howled.

“Cargo!” Fischer shouted, then stopped her EVA, releasing him from his horror. 

As soon as he told her, Farrier knew via Gestalt, and a team was launched into action. The five of them in the underground tunnel, plus the four dead bodies, stood motionless, silent, until Gestalt gave the signal by picking Yun up with four hands, gentle with her injury. One of their torsos still ached, considered freshly wounded, but they could make it out without leaning on themself, or worse, hindering Conrad. Grantchester probably made the call to knock the assailant out and bring him to the Apex House cells, but Gestalt really couldn’t care less. They just wanted to put Yun under medical care, finish writing the debriefing, and go back to their flat and sleep. 

Shit. Farrier knew they were injured, so they’d probably have to make a stopover there first, which really got in the way. 

Really. What a fuckup. Gestalt was never going to wear a wedding ring for a mission again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as it were, i'm actually, ah, moving to a new country next week, so i am running low on time and may not update for a while.
> 
> but the exciting thing is! look at all of the fics that have blossomed! i'm so happy to see more people around.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gestalt is extraordinary at all things, including feeling (although they'd hate you to know). feeling, like fire, craves to be fed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i fail to do actual plot and just do thinking. this is why i don't write often, i think so much and write so little.

Gestalt spent their own time breaking their own heart. It was ridiculously easy, in fact. Colleagues let them down. Subordinates were always disappointments, scrambling to catch up. Thinking about how the world hated them, even if they didn’t know them. Letting themself feel like a wind-up doll, on the worst of days. 

Watching Myfanwy Thomas. 

That was the problem with having eight eyes. You couldn’t not look. 

“You’ve got quite a talent for this,” she was telling the new hire.

Innocent, they told themself. 

Could be not, they replied. 

You’re paranoid and foolish, they shot back.

You’ll never know.

That brief mental tussle put an end to their staring for a while, although they kept her in the corner of their eyes. Really, Myfanwy had been their friend for ages. The new Glengrove House was all cool edges and feel-good training, just grooming for future work at the Checquy’s many offices in similar style. The old Glengrove House had been perfect for their mischief, the sort of adventures regular schoolchildren had in the books Gestalt read in the library. Wide fields, creaking floorboards, hidden rooms begging to be explored. And Myfanwy, tiny wide-eyed Myfanwy, so uncertain of herself she needed four smiles to encourage her, had been the perfect partner in crime.

Now she was sleek lines, too, same as Gestalt. But Gestalt clung on to their ragged orphan edges in the privacy of their own mind, the distaste for the clanking of the chain. The willingness to be the claws that catch, the jaws that bite. The feeling that if they left the city for long enough, they would become feral, and enjoy every second. 

Myfanwy didn’t seem to have any of that, any desire of that left, and it broke their heart. She was still Myfanwy. But every day, it seemed, she was drifting further away from them. She didn’t know it. 

They had eight eyes. They could see. 

So all they could do was give her soft smiles, keep steady for her. See if she would notice the way they looked at her, notice the way she electrified the room for them. Encourage, plan, overthink, but never push. 

If Myfanwy, in the end, didn’t want them, that was fine. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t slept with other people. If Myfanwy became enamoured with this fresh-faced hire, barely five steps out of Glengrove House, or ran away from the pizza man from last week, or met people on Tinder, that was fine. 

Their heart would be broken, but the phantom of it was almost normal. To feel the pain for real would be almost welcome.

“... and change the subject, I should think,” Farrier finished, speaking to them in her office. “Knowing her, she’ll get quite worked up about this fake she fell for.”


	6. wild thang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the checquy was proud it had tamed Gestalt.

The Checquy was proud that it had tamed Gestalt. 

The Checquy had taken a wild thing, a beast with four heads and eight arms that could see in all directions and would willfully bite, especially the softest of creatures. They had groomed it and trained it until it danced to their tune and didn't even glower at its handlers, didn't pay mind to the rattling of its chains. They tried to make it grateful for its cage. 

Gestalt had been feral, once, or something close to it. 

The monster the Checquy said it had been was a dreaded thing, so stark and legendary people would spend their lives chasing after even the slightest rumor it could possibly be real. And if it was real, what were those people hoping to do with the knowledge? After all, the Checquy had already run calloused fingers down its raised hackles, over and over again until it was turned into a decorative attack dog. 

Now, internal memos passed the note around that the Checquy saw Gestalt as a prize. A trophy head, a living symbol of the stick and the carrot and the power of something that clung onto a reason to survive. If the Checquy had a facebook, Gestalt would be displayed there front and center - a hunter and its victories. Victory. 

"I'm going on a trip," Gestalt said, as they were musing. "I'll need leave for the weekend."

Ingrid cast her eyes first at the body speaking to her, and then to where, through the glass doors, she could see Gestalt leaning on Myfanwy's desk, the pair of heads thrown back in what was workplace-appropriate laughter. 

"You know technically you're your own boss, right? Except for the King and Queen, but you have your own team. You set your own hours. Unless you were hoping to steal Myfanwy from her department?"

Gestalt gave her a smile, one that typically people responded well to. Ingrid was like every other, as lovely as she was. 

"Haven't asked her yet. I was more interested in asking you, since I know you do a lot of the heavy lifting around here. If you can't spare us this weekend-"

"-we'll go next weekend instead." They interrupted themself with an apologetic look at Ingrid as they brought in papers from the meeting they had just finished holding with their own Pawns. She gestured at them, the three bodies within her sight.

"You need all four?"

"Wouldn't ask if I didn't," they muttered as they left again, in and out in a breeze of files left, nevertheless, in a careful stack on her desk. She acknowledged it with a grateful nod. 

"Charismatic," she commented dryly. "But yeah, no, that should be fine. Got Myfanwy?"

Truthfully, Gestalt hadn't asked her, nor would they. They were talking with her about some social faux pas from last week's gossip wheel, and although they were really only interested in that sort of inter-office politics for the information to file away, and to learn how the system worked to better work within it, they weren't going to interrupt the smooth, easy conversation with anything like telling her she shouldn't expect to see them that weekend. Really, she should't expect to see them at work any weekend, if they worked a normal job, but staff was in the office on Saturdays and Sundays occasionally, laws be damned. If she didn't see them, she would probably think they were out in the field or something. It wasn't too abnormal for them to be gone.

All of them gone would be a different question, but they weren't going to deal with that until after. They needed this break. 

"Nah," Gestalt said with a shrug. "You know how she is." They rapped her desk with their knuckles and a manicured hand, smiling again. "Well, thanks, Ingrid. Appreciated."

Gestalt's youth had been spent two ways: the first half, as far back as they could remember, out in the woods and the wild. What pack of wolves wouldn't want to be the power of the many with the strength of one? What bear wouldn't desire to be four times as large, four times as dangerous to the threats around them? Gestalt hunted, and built, and learned as the sun shone and as the water flowed. And then Gestalt was taken, screaming and hissing, into four walls that showed them eight of them back, given a name more than Me/I, given things like clothes and cooked food and blankets, which they learned in time to appreciate.

It came at the cost of their freedom, at the sheer indignity of having been a thing of nature and bent to the metal. Most days they tried not to think about it, too consumed with pretending they were a normal human to think about pretending to be human. Gestalt valued illusions like Myfanwy valued her own illusions, and that was the best parallel they could come up with. 

This weekend, they wouldn't have to think. This weekend, given only a time constraint and the extreme need for caution as not to be found, they would breathe the forest air again. They would take in the running hare, the singing birds, the chatter of the undergrowth, rustling bugs - take it all in, just like a normal human, EVA or powerless. That was as good as it would get for them. It would be enough. It would have to be enough. 

The Checquy could be proud it had tamed Gestalt. But Gestalt was proud they had fashioned themself into a beast, first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone is so nice so I thought I'd come back for a hot flash. pretend I have inserted that emoji with the awkward straight-lined toothy smile. 
> 
> also, I wrote this during the worst hangover of my life. Please forgive me. I'm aware it's short and vague and I'm going to work on it more... but I'm.... it's what I've got, lol. I'm not actually sure I accept the headcanon that Gestalt was absolutely feral and abandoned, but I'm rolling for it for this one.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I run @qsregestalt on Twitter? Yes, yes I do. I am so intrigued by literally everything Gestalt right now it's not even funny my dudes. If you also have questions, hit me up.


End file.
